The Day After

Thurs AM Newburyport Waterfront

This morning is much cooler than yesterday. And lucid. There was actually a summer like haze in the air yesterday. But today things are crystal clear.

I can see every ripple on the water downstream. I see each navigation marker and mooring. The branches on the trees across the river are detailed silhouettes of that particular natural chaos. The houses downriver miles away on Plum Island have obvious windows and rooflines today. The rock jetty in Salisbury doesn’t fade away into perspective but stands with crenellated strength. Even the clouds above the horizon have singular features and facets.

After the thunderstorm comes such clarity. One goes to school and graduates, gets a job, falls in love, gets married, has kids, buys this and that, reads these, writes those, lives here and there, and in the meantime wishes for something else, questions everything and nothing, longs for anything but that.

But that, you see on days like this, was everything there is.